"That jigger can shore handle a gun," remarked Loudon. "If this ain't one lovely fix for a Christian! Winchester no good, only a six-shooter, an' a fully-organized miracle-worker a-layin' for my hide. I'm a-goin' somewhere, an' I'm goin' right now."

He dropped the broken lever and rubbed his numbed fingers till sensation returned. Then he put on his hat and hurried down to his horse.

He jammed the rifle into the scabbard, mounted, and rode swiftly southward, taking great pains to keep to the low ground.

A mile farther on he forded the creek and gained the shelter of an outflung shoulder of Box Hill.

Near the top Loudon tied Lemons to a tree and went forward on foot. Cautiously as an Indian, Loudon traversed the flat top of the hill and squatted down in a bunch of tall grass between two pines. From this vantage-point his field of view was wide. The rock ledge and the mud-hole were in plain sight. So was the rock from which he had been fired upon. It was a long mile distant, and it lay near the crest of a low hog's-back close to the creek.

"He's got his hoss down behind the swell," muttered Loudon. "Wish this hill was higher."

Loudon pondered the advisability of climbing a tree. He wished very much to obtain a view of the depression behind the hog's-back. He finally decided to remain where he was. It was just possible that the hostile stranger might be provided with field glasses. In which case tree-climbing would invite more bullets, and the shooting of the enemy was too nearly accurate for comfort.

Loudon settled himself comfortably in his bunch of grass and watched intently. Fifteen or twenty minutes later what was apparently a part of the rock detached itself and disappeared behind the crest of the hog's-back.

Soon the tiny figure of a mounted man came into view on the flat beyond. Horse and rider moved rapidly across the level ground and vanished behind a knoll. When the rider reappeared he was not more than nine hundred yards distant and galloping hard on a course paralleling the base of the hill.

"Good eye," chuckled Loudon. "Goin' to surround me. I'd admire to hear what he says when he finds out I ain't behind that swell."

The stranger splashed across the creek and raced toward some high ground in the rear of Loudon's old position.

Now that the enemy had headed westward there was nothing to be gained by further delay.

Loudon had plenty of courage, but one requires more than bravery and a six-shooter with which to pursue and successfully combat a gentleman armed with a Winchester.

Hastily retreating to his horse, Loudon scrambled into the saddle, galloped across the hilltop and rode down the eastern slope at a speed exceedingly perilous to his horse's legs. But the yellow horse somehow contrived to keep his footing and reached the bottom with no damage other than skinned hocks.

Once on level ground Loudon headed southward, and Lemons, that yellow bundle of nerves and steel wire, stretched out his neck and galloped with all the heart that was in him.

Loudon's destination was a line-camp twelve miles down the creek. This camp was the temporary abode of two Bar S punchers, who were riding the country south of Fishtail Coulee. Loudon knew that both men had taken their Winchesters with them when they left the ranch, and he hoped to find one of the rifles in the dugout.

With a rifle under his leg Loudon felt that the odds would be even, in spite of the fact that the enemy had an uncanny mastery of the long firearm. Loudon's favourite weapon was the six-shooter, and he was at his best with it. A rifle in his hands was not the arm of precision it became when Johnny Ramsay squinted along the sights. For Johnny was an expert.

"Keep a-travellin', little hoss, keep a-travellin'," encouraged Loudon. "Split the breeze. That's the boy!"

Loudon had more than one reason for being anxious to join issue with the man who had attacked him. At nine hundred yards one cannot recognize faces or figures, but one can distinguish the colour of a horse, and Loudon's antagonist rode a sorrel. Chuck Morgan had said that Blakely's horse was a sorrel.

Loudon sighted the dugout that was Pack-saddle line-camp in a trifle less than an hour. He saw with elation that two hobbled ponies were grazing near by. A fresh mount would quicken the return trip. Loudon's elation collapsed like a pricked bubble when he entered the dugout and found neither of the rifles.

He swore a little, and smoked a sullen cigarette. Then he unsaddled the weary Lemons and saddled the more vicious of the two hobbled ponies. Subjugating this animal, a most excellent pitcher, worked off a deal of Loudon's ill-temper. Even so, it was in no cheerful frame of mind that he rode away to inspect the two mud-holes between Fishtail Coulee and Box Hill.

To be beaten is not a pleasant state of affairs. Not only had he been beaten, but he had been caught by the old Indian fighter's trick of the empty hat. That was what galled Loudon. To be lured into betraying his position by such an ancient snare! And he had prided himself on being an adroit fighting man! The fact that he had come within a finger's breadth of paying with his life for his mistake did not lesson the smart, rather it aggravated it.

Late in the afternoon he returned to the line-camp. Hockling and Red Kane, the two punchers, had not yet ridden in. So Loudon sliced bacon and set the coffee on to boil. Half an hour after sunset Hockling and Kane galloped up and fell upon Loudon with joy. Neither relished the labour, insignificant as it was, of cooking.

"Company," remarked Red Kane, a forkful of bacon poised in the air.

The far-away patter of hoofs swelled to a drumming crescendo. Then inside the circle of firelight a pony slid to a halt, and the voice of cheerful Johnny Ramsay bawled a greeting.

"That's right, Tom!" shouted the irrepressible Johnny. "Always have chuck ready for yore uncle. He likes his meals hot. This is shore real gayful. I wasn't expectin' to find any folks here."

"I s'pose not," said Red Kane. "You was figurin' on romancin' in while we was away an' stockin' up on our grub. I know you. Hock, you better cache the extry bacon an' dobies. Don't let Johnny see 'em."

"Well, o' course," observed Ramsay, superciliously, "I've got the appetite of youth an' a feller with teeth. I don't have to get my nourishment out of soup."

"He must mean you, Hock," said Red Kane, calmly. "You've done lost eight."

"The rest of 'em all hit," asserted Hockling, grinning. "But what Johnny wants with teeth, I dunno. By rights he'd ought to stick to milk. Meat ain't healthy for young ones. Ain't we got a nursin'-bottle kickin' round some'ers, Red?"

"Shore, Red owns one," drawled Loudon. "I seen him buyin' one once over to Farewell at Mike Flynn's."

"O' course," said Johnny, heaping his plate with bacon and beans. "I remember now I seen him, too. Said he was buyin' it for a friend. Why not admit yo're married, Red?"

"Yuh know I bought it for Mis' Shaner o' the Three Bars!" shouted the indignant Kane. "She done asked me to get it for her. It was for her baby to drink out of."

"Yuh don't mean it," said Johnny, seriously. "For a baby, yuh say. Well now, if that ain't surprisin'. I always thought nursin'-bottles was to drive nails with."

In this wise the meal progressed pleasantly enough. After supper, when the four were sprawled comfortably on their saddle-blankets, Loudon launched his bombshell.

"Had a small brush this mornin'," remarked Loudon, "with a gent over by the mud-hole north o' Box Hill."

The three others sat up, gaping expectantly.

"Djuh get him?" demanded Johnny Ramsay, his blue eyes glittering in the firelight.

Loudon shook his head. He raised his left arm, revealing the rent in his shirt. Then he removed his hat and stuck his finger through the hole in the crown.

"Souvenirs," said Loudon. "He busted the lever off my Winchester an' gormed up the action."